A Bird's Song
by counterpunch
Summary: Fill for prompt: Anna moves on without Elsa. "Anna hates that sometimes she thinks about her. It's been fifteen years and still Elsa exists only in the absence of things."
1. Chapter 1

**Note:** Title is from the song by Ingrid Michaelson, in Elsa's pov

* * *

Anna hates that sometimes she thinks about her. It's been fifteen years and still Elsa exists only in the absence of things. Moments like walking through quiet corridors, listening to the _tick tock _of the Grandfather clock in the library, seeing the full moon.

The anniversary of their parents' deaths.

When her first child is born.

She married into a respectable royal family and though the first few years were overwhelming and strange (a new language, new customs, food, fashion, traditions, etc;) most of Anna never looked back. There wasn't much to look back on, anyway, just closed doors and empty corridors.

Not much of a life at all.

She'd missed Elsa, but it never got easier missing someone who didn't seem to exist anymore but lived instead as a hollow shell of someone she once knew, a girl who'd laughed and played and protected her.

It got too hard living with ghosts after her parents died. She'd hoped that maybe, just maybe, things might change. That whatever had happened, whatever kept her in that room, would be forgiven, buried at sea along with mama and papa. But as the days dragged on and hope evaporated, she started to wonder what kind of person didn't come to her own parents' funeral. What kind of person would let their sister stand between those massive, taciturn stones all by herself, facing the future cold and lonely and alone?

Maybe it wasn't a person at all.

Confusion and hurt stung her eyes for months that year, because the people she'd go to when she felt this way were _gone_ and they were never coming _back_ and it's just her and Elsa, but Elsa is never _there_, so it's really just _her_. Alone now like never before.

At that betrayal, Anna's hope and sorrow turned into anger. The following three years had proven her anger righteous as Elsa's silence continued. Not a single word passed her lips. Not a single glance at her coronation. Barely seen at all, her sister was a blue shadow, hesitating around corners and lingering in the breaths between words that were never said. Anna was made to love things, and with nowhere to go, it was souring inside of her, turning her bitter and resentful and she couldn't stand it anymore. She didn't want to end up like _her_.

The coronation was the first time the gates had been open since she was a child, the one day they'd be open for years to come, and they served a purpose for each sister: a crown for Elsa and a ring for Anna. Suitors were judged and screened throughout the events and Anna chose within the day.

She was married a few weeks later. Elsa didn't attend the wedding.

Anna clung to the promise and possibilities he carried, dreaming of going somewhere, _anywhere_. Someplace that was filled with _people_, open places, exciting, and all the things that Anna was but couldn't be, trapped in Arendelle.

It's warm year-round in Andalusia and there are no snowmen here. She prefers it that way because snow always makes her think of Elsa and she hates that her sister still has the power to make her feel so cold inside.

Other times it isn't as easy as hate and no matter how wonderful her life is now, part of her will always be lost and missing.

It rains in winter and Anna remembers seasons past; of her father's warm gaze and her mother's loving smile and the way Elsa would tickle Anna so hard she cried. Sometimes Anna thinks she made it all up, that she must have been mistaken, because how could anyone so bitterly cold and distant have ever been so loving and warm.

There are no winters in Andalusia but her daughter is blonde and the ghost of Elsa persists, just as haunting and mysterious as before, but with fewer answers.

Anna's determined not to let Elsa dominate her present the way she did the past and so she grits her teeth and burns new memories to sear over the old. It's a tired wound, but one she's still desperate to cauterize because sometimes Anna hemorrhages from the past and she's tired of bleeding.

Her love is no longer wasted and Anna pours everything into her life - her children, her husband, her position- so pressing and present in everything, and tries not to think about the part of her heart that's still held hostage in a far-off lonely land.

She tells the children she used to have a sister. It's not a lie, exactly. Just because the tense is confusing doesn't make it any less true.

She did, once.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note:** Credit/blame for the idea for the epilogue was inspired by Silencia del Umbrae

* * *

The letter changes everything and nothing at the same time.

An envelope arrived innocuously one Thursday morning bearing a crocus crest but Anna was too upset to read it, eyeing it angrily for days as she paced. Eighteen years with no word and _suddenly_ her sister decides to send a letter. Its not fair for Elsa to intrude on her life all these years later, now that Anna's life is settled and wonderful. Once again everything is all on her terms and its selfish and detached, just like everything else about her. She hasn't changed one bit.

In a fit of frustration Anna finally grabs the letter, breaks the seal, and is ready to fire curses in the air when the words stop her cold and the edges of the world blacken.

_"Your Royal Highness Princess Anna of Andalusia and Arendelle, is requested on behalf of her kingdom upon the passing of Her Royal Majesty Queen Elsa the First, by the Grace of God, of Arendelle, and Her other Realms and Territories."_

She reads it three times.

There was a fire, they said.

All the arrangements are made hastily in a haze of disbelief and confusion because how could Elsa _die_ and leave this all for her. Its a burden she never wanted, thrust upon her without her consent and Anna can't make sense of it because she was just a pawn who is now suddenly expected to be a queen. She has no idea how to be one and Anna's as lost she was the day her parents died. Anna hates that Elsa has even taken her outrage from her because its so much harder to be angry with someone who's dead.

Or maybe it makes it easier. She's not sure.

One person is buried but two different people died, both finally put to rest, but Anna only mourns the one she lost long ago, the one she's already been grieving for years.

She holds onto her anger because its all that's familiar while her life is uprooted. She hasn't been to Arendelle since she left and barely knows anything about it anymore, just broken memories and dead things. She's spent more of her life outside of Arendelle than in it, but she still cries when the mountaintops peek over the horizon and the spires of the castle towers come into view.

The royal quarters were rebuilt the same as before and though everything smells new, the ghosts of kings and queens past haunt this place and Anna shivers beneath the eerie silence of what's left of her family.

There's another letter inside her new chambers, but this one dates back almost ten years ago and starts with,_ "Dear Anna, I loved you the best way I knew how…"_

Her hand shakes.

The letter falls, and understanding is cold, so much colder than Anna could have ever imagined. Colder than winter, colder than ice, colder than Elsa, who it turns out was never really cold at all.

This time there's no one to blame when she cries and her tears leave her hollow and aching. She cries for lives lost, for a life taken from her - from both of them - memories that she'll never have, memories that were robbed from her. Grieving for the sister stolen from her.

Though granted at a terrible cost, with knowledge finally comes a measure of peace.

The ghost of Elsa has always lingered, but now Anna does not mind. She draws strength from it and it comforts her, the way Elsa had always wanted to, the way Anna always needed, and now thoughts of her soothe instead of blister.

That night she tells her children a story about two little girls, of love and sacrifice and magic. A story about understanding and forgiveness. About coming home. A story about family.

Anna knew somewhere, Elsa is listening.


End file.
